


Origins

by Dream_In_Color



Series: Revolution [2]
Category: Original Work
Genre: First Meetings, I'm Bad At Summaries, I'm Bad At Tagging, M/M, Origin Story, Original Character(s), Post-Apocalypse, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-23
Updated: 2018-06-29
Packaged: 2019-03-08 11:55:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,322
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13457736
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dream_In_Color/pseuds/Dream_In_Color
Summary: A bit of background and how they meet.Chapter 1Gabriel has made it to the next state over by the time he sees another living person. There are dead bodies everywhere now, but most people have huddled together, trying to survive. He didn’t trust anyone he knew enough to stay.Chapter 2Micks starts to lose track of time, people start leaving or getting sick. He tries to keep to himself, as much as he can. He’s fast and still a bit short for his age, so he sneaks around the town, out of sight, unnoticed. Eventually, he’s the only person left.





	1. Gabe

Gabriel has made it to the next state over by the time he sees another living person. There are dead bodies everywhere now, but most people have huddled together, trying to survive. He didn’t trust anyone he knew enough to stay.

The town he finds himself in come sundown is small. Mom-and-Pop stores along _Main Street_ , only a handful of traffic lights. White picket fences and windows with flower boxes. The type of town where no one ever leaves.

Gabe raids supplies from the pharmacy and the remnants of the grocery store. The front window is busted out, looters probably, almost everything is gone, but he finds a handful of snacks, which is better than nothing. He stumbles upon the bodies of two employees and a man who appears to be the owner. The name on his badge matches the sign above the door.

Gabe covers his mouth and nose, partially from the smell, partially to try _(pathetically_ ) to keep the sickness out. But there’s a hole in the owner’s head. A bullet wound. He can’t see the employees but he can guess that they were trying to ration out supplies and someone got greedy. He’s seen it before.

He heads toward the first street off the main road, one lined with quaint “American Dream” houses. He finds one with no broken windows or doors eight houses down. When people were around to maintain it, Gabe guesses it would’ve looked like it came straight off the pages of a Home & Garden magazine. He tries the doors and finds the sliding doors in the back unlatched.

_Pretty lucky. **It’s a trap.**_ He thinks, simultaneously waring with himself over the likelihood of getting murdered. He enters cautiously, slowly, drawing his gun from his belt. He canvases the house like he always saw cops do in television shows. _First floor clear. **Still a trap.**_

He heads up the stairs, cringing when he finds one that creeks, the sound echoing through the silent house. He pauses, but nothing happens, so he keeps going. When he reaches the top of the stairs he’s met with a wooden baby-gate. He unlatches it. An air horn goes off next to him. He looks up, sees the wire. _Warning system_. **_Told you._** He waits for someone to show up but no one comes. _Must’ve left and forgot to disarm it. **What if they’re coming back?**_ He asks himself as he checks each room. The master is empty. There is another room full of various sports posters, medals, memorabilia that is also empty, everything covered in a layer of dust. The bathroom is the same.

The final room was once an office that was once a bedroom. There was still a bed in one corner. The head and footboards a dark grey metal. The sheets were black, the comforter a dark blue. The walls were mint-green in places and pitch black or dark grey in others.

Gabe steps closer to the wall, runs his fingers across the edges. The black wasn’t painted over the green, it was the other way around. Someone had started scraping off the pastel, revealing the other color. There were posters pinned to the walls and some rolled up, leaning against the walls, obviously removed _(not put back up yet)_ to allow for the paint demolition.

The desk in the opposite corner was a matching gunmetal-grey. There was a bookshelf overflowing with novels of all shapes, sizes, colors.

_Nice._ There’s an entire shelf dedicated to the Harry Potter series. Some of the books still have bookmarks in them.

He left the door open when he entered, and he’s too wrapped up in his skimming of a book titled _Proxy_ to notice when someone else enters the room. Until he hears the cocking of the gun.

“Who’re you?” The boy asks. Gabe turns to look at him, book still in hand, arms spread a bit so as to make it obvious that he’s not holding his weapon. He looks at his gun, siting on the bookshelf, then at the one aimed at him.

The boys almost a foot shorter than himself, hair mostly a sandy blond but with evidence of being bleached still visible at the ends. He’s a teenager, maybe 17 _(18 at a stretch)_.

“Name’s Gabe.” He answers. The boy waits for him to elaborate, so he does. “I’m sorry. I was looking for a place to stay for the night and I saw your books. I wasn’t trying to steal or anything.” He thinks for a minute. “You avoided the creaky step.”

“Yeah.” The boy says, not lowing the gun. “I grew up here. This was my parent’s house. That step’s squeaked since I was five.” _Explains a lot._ The blond looks at him, hard. The kind of look you give something when you’re making a decision about it. He lowers his gun.

“I’m Jeremy, but _everyone_ ,” he stresses the word, “calls me Micks.”

“Mix.”

“Yeah, like m-i-c-k-s. Sorta an abbreviation of my last name.” Gabe nods his head like it makes total sense. It doesn’t, not really, although he supposes it’s not the strangest thing he’s ever heard. He puts his arms down and sets the book back on the shelf. He doesn’t pick up his gun.

“Can I ask you a question?”

“Sure.” Micks says, sitting down on the edge of the bed and pulling off his shoes.

“What’s with the walls?”

Micks laughs, smiling the kind of smile that means something is only funny now, in hindsight.

“They kicked me out last year and then redecorated my room. Pretty unsubtle way of saying there was no chance of them letting me come back, right?”

“Then why did you? If you don’t mind me asking, that is.”

“Cause home is home, ya know. I figured if I was gonna live out the end of the world anywhere, I’d rather it be here. I thought maybe at least the fuckin’ apocalypse would make them take me back, but…”

“They didn’t?”

“They were already gone.” He pauses, looks down at his hands. Whispers the next part. “They left without me.”

“I’m sorry.” The boy gives him a small, sad smile, then nods to the desk chair.

“You can sit down ya know. You can stay here for the night if you still want to. You can stay in either of the other rooms or whatever.”

“Oh. Thanks.” Gabe says. He casts the boy another look, who is watching him carefully, and picks up his gun from the bookshelf, tucks it back into his belt before he takes the offered seat.

“One more question, although it’s not really any of my business.” The boy gives him the _seriously, just ask already_ look.

“Why’d they kick you out?”

“Cause I’m gay.” Micks says, without a seconds hesitation. “I told them I was taking Danny Turner from down the street to Homecoming and they lost their shit. I could dress in black and paint my walls black and bleach my hair and they were pissed but they dealt with it but the second I try to be normal and even go to the fuckin’ dance they loose it cause I wanna take a guy.” He flops dramatically backwards on his bed.

Gabe huffs out the semblance of a laugh and says. “Sorry man.”

“Thanks. Anyway, past is past, nothin’ gonna fix it now anyway, so…” he sits back up. “What’ bout you?”

“What about me?”

“Where ya from, cause it definitely ain’t around here?”

“Next state over.”

“Seriously.”

“Yeah. Didn’t have anyone there to stay for, so…”

“That’s so cool!” Gabe looks at the kid shocked. “I’ve never even left the boarder of this town before.” _Ah._

“Anyone else still here?”

“Naw, just me.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, why?”

“That’s just… pretty amazing that you’ve survived this long all on your own.”

“Thanks.” Micks smiles at him, full on smile this time, and Gabe feels something in his chest twinge He’s trying to ignore it so he doesn’t have to acknowledge that he’s pretty sure it was his heart.

Objectively _(not actually)_ , the kid is cute. Hair short but with slightly longer bangs that sweep to the side, although it looks like it’s been recently self-cut. Eyes the color of forest moss. He’s confident and self-efficient which are generally very attractive _(Stop it! He’s a child.)_ qualities ( _You don’t even know how old he is.)_

“Okay, last question, promise.”

“Shouldn’t make promises you won’t keep.”

He snorts a bit, asks anyway. “How old are you?”

“Sixteen… tomorrow.

He stares at him in shock for a few moments before clearing his throat. “Oh… cool.” An _only mildly awkward_ silence descends on the two.


	2. Micks

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A bit of background and how they meet.
> 
> Chapter 1  
> Gabriel has made it to the next state over by the time he sees another living person. There are dead bodies everywhere now, but most people have huddled together, trying to survive. He didn’t trust anyone he knew enough to stay.
> 
> Chapter 2  
> Micks starts to lose track of time, people start leaving or getting sick. He tries to keep to himself, as much as he can. He’s fast and still a bit short for his age, so he sneaks around the town, out of sight, unnoticed. Eventually, he’s the only person left.

Jeremy Mitchel, Micks to everyone other than people he’s related to, isn’t sure why he’s surprised when he the world goes to shit and his family still won’t talk to him. They’d made their opinions pretty fucking clear, but still…Family is family, right? And the end of the world is as good a time as any to decide that something like sexual orientation is a pretty stupid thing to fight over.

All-in-all, he shouldn’t be surprised. They haven’t spoken to him in months, even when he passes his brother in the hallways at the high school, nothing. Danny’s one escalated make-out session from secret boyfriend territory (or at least secret friends-with-benefits), plus he’s letting Micks stay at his house, but even he’s keeping his distance at school. So when the mysterious disease reaches their tiny little town, people make a run for it. He’s at the school when he sees the mass evacuation starting, stayed after, was hiding in the library until Danny finished basketball practice, because Danny had a car and it was pouring rain.

He tries calling the house phone. No answer. He calls his brother’s cell and it goes straight to voicemail. He checks the internet, social media, several other kids from school were posting about how many people were at the hospital... how many people were dying. He texted Danny that he was going to check on them, then ran the three and a half blocks to his house.

He makes it there in record time, soaked through, and uses his key to unlock the door.

“Hey. ‘S’me.” Micks calls to an empty house. He takes the steps quickly, not even caring about possibly getting yelled at for the water he’s tracking everywhere. “Mom? Dad?” He tries, looking into their room.

“Jarred?” he tries his brother’s room. Dresser drawers are thrown open and emptied, there are a few of his more beloved trophies and awards missing, the discolored spots on the wall making it obvious. Micks goes back to his parent’s room and yanks open the dresser drawers. Empty.

_They left without me. **They left. Without me.**_ It’s the only thing he can think as he stumbles to his (old) room. He opens the door, expecting to see the familiar dark-grey and black wall combo and instead being hit with pastel green. He was expecting it to be untouched. _It’s only been two months._

Now he’s furious. They’re his family and they didn’t care enough about him, despite their differences and disagreements, to bring him along when trying to escape the fuckin’ apocalypse. Danny texts him that night, tells him they’re leaving. He doesn’t bother responding.

He doesn’t have anywhere else to go though, not now, so he starts fixing his room. He spends three days trying to scrape off the pastel paint and barely gets anything done. He rehangs a few of his posters, the one’s he’d managed to hide from getting thrown away.

When the few people left in town start raiding the empty houses, Micks starts setting up defenses and barricades. He finds a few of his dad’s guns in the basement, and for the first time in his life, he appreciates his father force-teaching his sons everything they’d ever have needed to know about guns.

Micks starts to lose track of time, people start leaving or getting sick. He tries to keep to himself, as much as he can. He’s fast and still a bit short for his age, so he sneaks around the town, out of sight, unnoticed. Eventually, he’s the only person left. Food is getting scarce but he’s surviving.

He’s almost 16, literally a day away from it, in fact, has been alone for months, when he meets someone new. He saw the man walking down the road, had hid from him, watching. The stranger had been leaving the market, and he was…attractive, to say the least. Dark hair, short but tousled, not that anyone really worried about styling their hair these days. He saw the guy enter and leave the pharmacy rather quickly then head towards the houses. The sun was setting, and Micks still had to find a few things of his own, so he lost track of the man in favor of getting his own supplies.

He doesn’t expect to find the man in his house, in his room when he gets back. Figures the alarm would’ve freaked him out and he would’ve left before anyone could get back. He starts up the stairs, always as quiet as possible out of habit, and sees the door to his room open. He’s never actually shot anyone but he pulls the gun anyway. The man appears to be inspecting the books, his own gun sitting on the shelf.

“Who’re you?” he asks. The man turns around, _Proxy_ still in his hand. He’s even more attractive close-up. Eyes a beautiful, bright, blue-green. Like the ocean. He’s even got a 5-o’clock shadow going on and he’s almost a foot taller than Micks himself.

_Shit._ Micks thinks, looking at him. He looks nice enough. He holds his hands out away from him to show Micks that he’s not going for another weapon. He’s almost decided to trust the guy already, and he hasn’t even spoken.

“Name’s Gabe.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Constructive criticism, kudos and comments are always appreciated!


End file.
